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Kawasaki has decided not to compete in an already depleted AMA/DMG roadracing fiasco for 2010.
At this rate, BMW ought to enter the diminishing field. They'll be almost bound to win now that everyone else is either bailing out or being driven away.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

If BMW goes racing in the US it would be a decision at the national level and run out of BMW NA. I have been trying to imagine what I would say to Pieter de Waal the head of Motorrad USA regarding this. Frankly in every conversation I imagine I end up telling him racing in the US right now is a no win (even if you win the DMG/AMA Pro Racing Championship) proposition for BMW and a dumb waste of time and money for the company. I am incredibly disappointed to come to this conclusion for all sorts of reasons but today that is what I think.

As always what I think and a buck will get you a small cup of coffee and change at the official F-O-L gas station. But if Mr. de Waal, who I really like, wants to have a cup of coffee and talk about it I would see he gets a new styrofoam cup. Heck I would even spring for crullers!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

WSBK et al.

www.roadracingworld.com: Reader reaction to various DMG/AMA Pro Racing Issues, including the poll on rolling restarts

worldsbk.com: Guintoli gearing up for first full World Superbike season

I read this short piece and had a Whiskey Tango Fox trot moment.f1sa.com: USF1 signs agreement with supplier of advance composites

The big news for USF1 is they signed a supplier agreement? Time passing quickly and they are the only team not to have signed a single driver. Yet they were the first of the new teams for 2010. Meanwhile SpeedTV continues to cover everything but what is going on at USF1. .

J.D. Power and Associates issued a press release about their 2009 Motorcycle Owner Customer Satisfaction Study. The results show a significant increase over last year‘«÷s numbers. The study measures five factors - product; quality; cost of ownership; sales; and service.

Sales and service areas showed the biggest improvement. The reasons pointed to for this may seem obvious to us.

The study also finds that dealers may positively impact satisfaction with the sales aspect of the ownership experience by following up with their customers after the sale. On average, the sales satisfaction score among customers who received a follow-up phone call is 170 points higher than among those who did not get a follow-up call.

‘«£The follow-up phone call is a simple concept that may have a significant impact on customers‘«÷ sales or service experiences,‘«ō said Markusic. ‘«£While it might seem that calling customers after a visit would be standard practice for dealers, 20 percent of customers don‘«÷t receive a call after a new bike purchase and 56 percent don‘«÷t receive a call after having their bike serviced.‘«ō

Motorcycle owners who take their bike to a dealer for maintenance or repair-related service work present dealers with an opportunity to make a lasting impression, as the length of time a motorcycle is in for service greatly impacts overall service satisfaction.

I wonder what the results would show if a BMW dealer satisfaction with customer survey would show? What could we learn from that about how they measure us and what would could customers do to improve the gap between us from the dealer perspective?

Wow, lots of bike candy today; Guzzi V-8, with and without dustbin fairing, Ducati bevel drive, and some art deco era streamlining. It must be the Christmas spirit!

I let my bitterness about the miserable decline of american roadracing come through a little bit to loud and clear. It's just a damn shame some of the worst decisions the AMA/DMG are making coincide with an economy which has everybody out there seriously evaluating what's worth it, and what isn't, including fans (as in the picture).

If BMW did compete, their ABS might come in handy when the clown (oops, errr, safety) car cuts everyone off.

The whole series needs a lift. Where's Pascal Picotte when we need him?

Sunday, December 20, 2009

MotoGP

It is never too early to start negotiating especially with a rider like Rossi. MotorCycle News says Yamaha has started to negotiate with Rossi to keep him on beyond the 2011 season and away from Ducati. Can they keep him away from four wheels?

Formula 1 and ‘«™

crash.net: Wurz admits he could yet be persuaded by USF1 to return to the cockpit.
My question remains; what would he be driving?

On the Street

The Vintagent gives us a chance to learn more about the man who designed the interesting streamliner R12, Louis Lucien Lepoix

I came home late Friday night and made a nice dinner. After dinner I kicked back with my second or maybe third beer and my computer. I brought the Forum up expecting to read the latest installment of The big renovation: 1908 home when I noticed I had a PM in my in box. When I checked it I found a link to the Motley Fool and an article from there titled, Is Harley-Davidson Doomed?

I had seen a related article earlier in the day on AsphaltandRubber.com announcing that Goldman and Sachs had downgraded the H-D stock. That article started me thinking about and trying to piece together all that I had read about H-D over that last months and the motorcycle industry in general. Scanning the article on fool.com I came to the conclusion that there are several stories that are being mingled together as we read about H-D and the motorcycle industry in general. In very broad terms these are
- Pure business stories of publicly held companies
- Motorcycle industry stories that talk of what is going on in an international industry
- Motorcyclist stories that talk about bikes and smell of gas grease and rubber.

H-D has been a frequent topic on the forum. Sometimes I am not certain which has the potential to turn vitriolic; a H-D thread or a helmet thread. I leave the latter alone but have often thought that as we talk about H-D in the former we are shadow boxing with questions we have about BMW. So lets do a little shadow boxing with H-D and the three general headings this morning.

Pure Business Story

Is H-D doomed? Depends on your investing horizon but in broad terms my answer is no.

The recent recall of over 110,000 bikes will hit them financially just when they don‘«÷t need it, but I agree with the Fool‘«÷s reader who suggested that H-D could figure out ways to turn a profit selling Screaming Eagle upgrades. Getting people into dealer show rooms is always a good way to move product and that generates revenue if only to churn.

In a longer term H-D is destined for some major changes. Some are fore seen some may come as a surprise in the process. H-D recently announced its 3rd quarter results, unveiled a new long term business strategy that calls for major consolidations. So change is on the horizon and is happening. The consolidation of the York plant and closing/consolidation of testing facilities are two examples of how this fore seen change is playing out.

The success and timing of these changes could have some unanticipated results. It is not inconceivable that in the process H-D could cease to be a publicly held company as we know it. All fun speculation, but back to the Fool‘«÷s question the answer in this section H-D is not doomed.

Motorcycle Industry Story

Here again I don‘«÷t think H-D is doomed any more than any other of the major manufactures in the motorcycle industry. The issues to pay attention to when writers write about the motorcycle industry is do they understand the sales cycle and when do they see industry recovery and how do they describe it. Few do. They want to treat motorcycle industry like the auto industry. The two share many similarities but their business cycles are very different and thus have very different implications.

When will the market recover? The articles think that we are going to see recovery in the next year. The assumption may seem reasonable if you think the overall economy is beginning to recover, which I do, I just don‘«÷t agree about the motorcycle recovery time line. The downward spiral in sales will continue for a while yet then level off into some chronic malaise for the next 24 months or a bit more.

H-D is a big enough and at same time a small enough player in the market to survive.

A Motorcyclist Story

The motorcyclist part of the H-D business story is when we bring it down to the ride and the smell of gas grease and rubber. This is where I find myself seeing H-D as doomed. Not today or in the near term but there is a point in the market direction that H-D may not be able to handle.

At some point the motorcyclist and the industry will be riding and building bikes that are no longer dominantly powered by gasoline. I don‘«÷t see a critical mass of H-D owners/buyers that are ready to make that change on an H-D. If that does not change the demise of H-D as a business in any form or as part of the industry will rest at the feet of its fans and previous buyers.

Keep in mind that my investment advice is to invest in another cup of coffee down at the F-O-L gas station. At least for a buck you get a clean cup with drinkable brown liquid and change. My cup ran empty a few lines ago and some would argue my intelligent thoughts ran out before I started typing.

Thank you to my fellow member and reader for the link to the Motley Fool article I had fund purposefully wondering about what I thought of it.

I am a Sherlock Holmes fan not a file. I can‘«÷t quote you chapter and verse for example or make cleaver exact references to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘«÷s work. I am just a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes stories, movies and updates. I am really looking forward to seeing this movie during my Christmas holiday break.

Today‘«÷s treat comes from motoblog.it‘«÷s Picture of the Day. The translated description starts, "William Dunlop during a road race through the trees. Pure poetry. Landscapes and sensations that you dream of racing on the track ".

I think you're on the money w/ the HD analysis. It's going to be a tough few years but not tougher than that of any other MC manufacturers.

They don't need technological or styling innovation as others. Just have to make incremental improvements, manage the bottom line and milk the Americana image for all it's worth. Not saying that would be easy, mind you.

Monday, December 21

dailyexpress.co.uk: Ecclestone gives Rome Grand Prix green light
The eternal none sense of Bernie Ecclestone finds a new home in the Eternal City; WHY? In an article on the Guardian they quote the Mayor of Rome.

"We have calculated that there will be an income of €1bn [?ķ900m] a year with this grand prix and Rome needs to renew its tourist appeal. Not only the past, archaeology and monuments, but also the future, something which is aimed at families and youngsters."

Good luck with that for Rome but for racing in general and cage racing’s symbiotic motorcycle racing partner street racing sucks up sponsor money and fan discretionary spending and leaves no infrastructure for the two wheeled crowd.

telegraph.co.uk: Iceland’s Glitnic ‘owes’ ₤10m to F1 team Williams
The world economic crisis hit Iceland hard. What had been a burgeoning island economy has gone away. Now the bills are coming due.

Book Review: scientificamerican.com: How Santa does it clones wormholes and memory-eliminating devicesThe brisk read—it comes in at just 144 pages—is not just a how-to for would-be Santas. It is a romp through the nearby future of advanced technology, a world where magic is made real.

Found in my In BoxLinks and ideas of from readers found in my In Box.

Professor Risk
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1PtQ67urG4
David Spiegelhalter's proper title is Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk. He is in two minds (literally) about playing it safe or chucking caution to the wind. Decisions, decisions!? Are bacon sandwiches really that dangerous and is it wise to drive when you love cycling? David shows us how to use statistics to face up to life's major risks.

The Sunday Times ran a piece by Jay Leno who was invited to look over the McLaren MP4-12C

You know, a trip to the UK for me is a pretty rare thing. Last time I was in England was 10 years ago and that was also for a visit to Woking, Surrey — when I bought one of the McLaren F1 road cars, a model many regard as the best car of all time. I have to agree.
So when the guys at McLaren asked if I’d like to come and see the new road car, the MP4-12C, I accepted.

I follow the BSA Bits Scraps and Allsorts blog. It offers some interesting pictures but very little if any information on the bikes pictured. The bikes that caught my eye for today were manufactured by FB Mondial in the 1950s. Curious, I did a bit of digging into Mondial motorcycles.

Mondial’s roots go back to the founding of FB in 1929. Four Boselli brothers, from a noble family in the Milan area, founded FB. In the years before WWII the company manufactured bicycles and delivery tricycles. After the war it became a manufacturer of small displacement high quality sporting machines.

During the 50s Mondial was involved in Grand Prix racing. The company took five world championships. In 1957 Mondial riders to the top three positions in the 250cc Championship and the first fourth and sixth positions in the 125cc Championship. Not bad for a company that produced between one and two thousand motorcycles a year.

After the 1957 season successes Mondial announced they would no longer be racing. They sighted the cost of running a racing program and the diminishing sales they were experiencing. More than a half century later we are still hearing manufacturers use the same words to explain their exits from racing today.

The last all-Mondial motorcycle left the factory in 1960. After this, Mondial purchased engines from proprietary makers. In this hybrid form, motorcycles with Mondial frames and ancillary parts, but non-Mondial engines, were produced by the factory for the next 19 years ending production in 1979. Mondial didn't produce new motorcycles until 1992 when Mondial was revamped by and heir to the firm and produced a KTM 560cc powered, single cylinder bike.

The rights to Mondial were purchased by newspaper tycoon Roberto Ziletti in 1999. In 2000 Ziletti worked with Honda to supply engines for the new Mondial from their RC51 superbikes. A deal was made, in part, because Mondial had supplied Soichiro Honda with that 1957 racebike. This was the first time Honda has ever allowed a firm to use its engines for their production vehicles. Ziletti experienced financial difficulties with his other businesses and in 2004 Milan bankruptcy courts took over the production facilities.

I did not find any specific information on the bikes pictured on the blog site. If any of you know more about Mondail motorcycles in general and these three models in particular I would love to hear from you.

Hmm‘«™The Kneeslider introduces us to the EcoMotors OPOC two stroke engine. The innovative design meets all EPA requirements and has all the 2 stroke mileage we remember. Just when we thought the 2 stroke was dead.

Jose Geraldo Reis Pfau‘«÷s miniatures show up on various sites on a regular basis. They have been in my past posts. He works with scraped watch parts to make his interpretation of real models. moto22.com is where his worked appeared recently. The gallery is full of motorcycle watch art whimsy.

T‘«÷is the Season to send Christmas Cards. Here are some of the electronic greetings have received in news letters or seen on line.

I don‘«÷t remember which blog I saw this image in first but it has show up in some of the e-mail greetings I have received.

It has been a tough economic year for Suzuki and their Rizla team but they were nice enough to include this small greeting in their news letter.

Sometimes Christmas cards provoke unintended reactions.

This was in the Triumph news letter. I looked left then right at the line of bikes then the center rider caught my attention. Suddenly I felt like I was six years old and wanted to run screaming into the house for my mom ma take my Christmas presents and behind a locked safe room door. YMMV.

This story has floated around the internet for a few days. Here it is presented by Motorcycle Daily as Yamaha‘«÷s Xmas Present: King Kenny on the TZ Flat Tracker Video

Today‘«÷s cruller comes from the Superpantah blog site and again it did not have any ingredients labeling so I headed to Wikepedia. Wikepeidia describes Laverda in its opening paragraphs as,

Laverda is an Italian manufacturer of combine harvesters and one-time a manufacturer of high performance motorcycles. The agricultural equipment brand is famous for quality, simplicity, and efficiency; while the motorcycles in their day gained a reputation for being robust and innovative.

The bike is based on a Laverda twin perhaps one of the 750cc versions. The simple and robust characteristics listed in the above description come through in this image.

Both USF1 and Campos spoke with the BBC and denied the comments of Bernie Ecclestone regarding their preparedness. I am more willing to believe Campos than USF1. They have passed concrete milestones on the path to the grid. We only have the word of Peter Windsor as to USF1 for their progress.

With all regards to Peter Windsor‘«÷s mother he has always struck me as a smarmy kind of guy. In the BBC article he is quoted,

"We are trying to find the best drivers we can; there's no rush," said Windsor, a former team manager with Williams.
"We have no date [for car completion]. It's difficult to predict when that date would be.
"However, there will be a moment when we announce the drivers at the factory and that will be some time towards late January."

All things he predicted and promised would happen in August and October.

On the Street

thedesingblog.org: Carbonfiber ‘«ˇWheel-skates‘«÷ take skating closer to skating and cycling